Legal Document

Privacy Policy

Applies to: sakarto.com

Sakarto processes all files locally in your browser — no files are ever uploaded. This policy explains what data is collected through our analytics and advertising services, and how your browser preferences are stored.

Summary

✓ Your files stay on your device
All scanning, fingerprinting, and file operations happen in your browser. No files are uploaded anywhere, ever.
✓ No account required
No sign-up, no email, no login. Using Sakarto does not require any personal information from you.
ℹ Analytics & session recording
We use Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity to understand how Sakarto is used at an aggregate level. See the Analytics section for full details.
ℹ Advertising via Google AdSense
We show ads through Google AdSense to help keep Sakarto free. AdSense may use cookies and your browsing history to personalize ads.

What We Collect

Sakarto does not operate any backend servers that receive your files or scan results. The data that is collected falls into two categories:

Data collected by us (indirectly, via third-party services)

  • Page views and navigation — collected by Google Analytics (which pages you visit, how long, where you came from)
  • Session recordings and heatmaps — collected by Microsoft Clarity (mouse movements, clicks, scroll depth on informational pages)
  • Ad interaction data — collected by Google AdSense (ad impressions, clicks, approximate location for ad targeting)

Data stored only on your device

  • UI preferences stored in your browser's localStorage (detected OS, scan settings, acknowledged warnings) — Local Storage

Data we never collect

  • Your files, file names, file paths, or scan results — these never leave your device
  • Any personally identifiable information through Sakarto itself

Your Files

All file processing in Sakarto — scanning, fingerprinting, comparing, moving, renaming, and deleting — occurs entirely within your browser. Your files are never uploaded, transmitted, or accessible to us in any way.

How file access works

When you click "Select Folder", your browser prompts you for permission via the File System Access API. This API:

  • Is controlled entirely by your browser, not by Sakarto
  • Only grants access to the specific folder you choose
  • Only lasts for the duration of that browser session (tab open)
  • Can be revoked at any time via your browser's site permissions

What happens to file data during a session

Fingerprints (perceptual hashes, color signatures, audio fingerprints) are computed from your files and held in JavaScript memory during the session only. When you close the tab, all of it is destroyed. Nothing is written to disk, stored in a database, or sent over any network.

You can verify this yourself: open DevTools → Network tab before scanning. You will see zero outbound requests during any file operation.

Local Storage

Sakarto stores a small amount of data in your browser's localStorage to remember your preferences. This data never leaves your device and is never sent to us.

What is stored

  • detected-os — Your OS (windows, macos, linux, ios, android) to adapt the UI appearance
  • fast-mode — Whether Fast Mode (JPEG thumbnail scanning) is enabled
  • queue-mode — Whether Queue Mode (stage before delete/move) is enabled
  • scan-images, scan-videos — Which file types to include in scans
  • Warning acknowledgement flags — Whether you have seen certain safety warnings, so they are not repeated

What is NOT stored

File names, paths, contents, scan results, fingerprints, or duplicate groups are never stored in localStorage. This data exists only in memory during the active session.

How to clear it

  • Chrome/Edge: DevTools → Application → Local Storage → sakarto.com → delete all
  • Firefox: DevTools → Storage → Local Storage → sakarto.com
  • Any browser: Settings → Privacy → Clear browsing data → Site data (filter to sakarto.com)

Analytics & Advertising

Sakarto uses the following third-party services. Each one is described honestly below, including what it collects.

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to understand aggregate page traffic — which pages are visited, how long users spend on them, and where traffic comes from. Google Analytics collects:

  • Anonymised IP address, approximate location (country/region level)
  • Browser type, device type, screen resolution
  • Pages visited and time spent on each
  • Referral source (how you found Sakarto)

We do not use Google Analytics' advertising features or cross-site tracking. You can opt out using Google's Analytics opt-out browser add-on or by enabling "Do Not Track" in your browser.

Microsoft Clarity

We use Microsoft Clarity for session recording and heatmap analysis. This helps us understand how the Sakarto interface is used in practice — for example, which parts of a page get the most attention or where users get confused. Clarity may record:

  • Mouse movements, clicks, and scroll depth on Sakarto's informational pages
  • Page navigation within the session
  • Approximate device and browser information
Clarity does not record your files. Your file names, scan results, duplicate groups, and any data inside the actual file tool are not captured by session recording. Clarity only sees the informational pages (homepage, download, privacy, terms, blog).

See Microsoft's Privacy Statement for full details on how Clarity handles data.

Google AdSense

Sakarto shows advertising through Google AdSense to help keep the service free. AdSense:

  • Uses cookies to serve and optionally personalize ads based on your browsing history across the web
  • May collect approximate location information for ad targeting
  • Is governed by Google's Privacy Policy Google's Privacy Policy

You can manage your Google ad personalization settings at myaccount.google.com/data-and-privacy. Choosing non-personalized ads is possible through Google's Ad Settings.

Cookies

Sakarto's own code does not set any cookies. We use localStorage for preference storage (which is different from cookies — it is not sent with HTTP requests and cannot be used for cross-site tracking).

However, our third-party analytics and advertising services do set cookies:

  • Google Analytics cookies — e.g. _ga, _ga_* — used to distinguish users and sessions
  • Microsoft Clarity cookies — e.g. _clck, _clsk, MUID — used for session identification in recordings
  • Google AdSense cookies — e.g. IDE, NID, _gcl_au — used to serve and measure ads

Our web hosting provider (e.g. Cloudflare) may also set infrastructure-level cookies such as _cf_bm for bot management. These are outside our control.

You can manage or block cookies using your browser's privacy settings or a browser extension such as uBlock Origin.

Third-Party Libraries

Sakarto loads the following JavaScript libraries from external CDNs when you first use certain features. These requests are the only file-related outbound network activity after page load.

  • OpenCV.js (cdnjs.cloudflare.com) — Loaded on first use of ORB image matching. Apache License 2.0.
  • Essentia.js (CDN) — Loaded on first use of Essentia HPCP audio fingerprinting. AGPL-3.0.
  • Meyda.js (CDN) — Loaded on first use of Meyda MFCC audio fingerprinting. MIT License.
  • Font Awesome 6 (cdnjs.cloudflare.com) — UI icons. Loaded on every page.
  • Google Fonts (fonts.googleapis.com) — Space Grotesk and Inter typefaces. Loaded on every page.

These CDN requests expose your IP address to the CDN provider (Cloudflare, Google) as a standard consequence of loading files over the web. After each library is loaded once, the service worker caches it locally — subsequent sessions make no external requests for these libraries.

PWA & Service Worker

If you install Sakarto as a Progressive Web App, a service worker is registered in your browser. The service worker:

  • Caches Sakarto's app files (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) for offline use
  • Caches third-party libraries (OpenCV.js, Essentia.js, Meyda.js) after their first load
  • Intercepts network requests to serve cached responses when offline

The service worker does not collect, transmit, or store any data about your usage, files, or scan results. You can remove it and all cached data at any time via your browser's site settings.

Changes to This Policy

If we make material changes to this privacy policy — especially any that involve collecting more data than described here — we will announce them clearly before they take effect.

Minor clarifications may be made at any time. This page always reflects the current policy.

Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy, you can reach us on Discord: